Child Protection: Using Research to Improve Policy and Practice

The National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) is the first nationally representative study of children who have been reported to authorities as suspected victims of abuse or neglect and the public programs that protect them. Child Protection is the first book that reports the results of NSCAW, interprets the findings, and puts them into a broader policy context.

The authors, all experts in child welfare issues, address a range of issues made apparent by the survey results, including which types of personal and familial problems the programs are meant to address, the range of services and interventions that the child protection system can make available, and an assessment of these programs. Each chapter discusses the survey's implications and suggests new alternatives for designing and implementing future programs that not only protect at-risk children from further harm but also provide them with security and support. The practical lessons included in this volume make it an essential reference for all professionals working in the child protection field as well as anyone studying in the field of child welfare.

Ron Haskins is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a senior consultant at the Annie E. Casey Foundation. A former adviser to the President for welfare policy, he spent 14 years on the staff of the House Ways and Means Human Resources Subcommittee, first as welfare counsel to the Republican staff, then as the subcommittee's staff director. He is the author of Work over Welfare: The Inside Story of the 1996 Welfare Reform Law (Brookings, 2006) and coeditor, with Rebecca Blank, of The New World of Welfare (Brookings, 2002). Fred Wulczyn is a research fellow at the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago, where he directs the Center for State Foster Care and Adoption Data. He is coauthor of Beyond Common Sense: Child Welfare, Child Well-Being, and the Evidence for Policy Reform (Aldine Transaction, 2005). Mary Bruce Webb directs the Division of Child and Family Development within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She has been the project officer for NSCAW since its inception.